THE VIOLATING MAXIMS OF MAIN CHARACTERS IN THE
HANGOVER
MOVIE’S SCRIPT
A THESIS
Submitted to Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By:
NANDA CHAIRUNNISA
2103220030
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Alhamdulillah, the writer express her best gratitude to Allah SWT, for
giving the writer blessing, endless love and mercy, especially in the process of
accomplishing this thesis. In accomplishing this thesis, the writer was helped by
so many beloved people and the writer would like to express her gratitude to:
1. Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si. as the Rector of State University of
Medan for his leadership in lead this college and for his antutiastic to hear all
problems from all students in State University of Medan.
2. Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum. as the Dean of Faculty of Languages and
Arts for her leadership and administrative assistance during the pocess of
writing this thesis.
3. Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd. as the Head of English and Literature
Department and Dra. Meisuri, M.A. as the Head of Applied Linguistics
Program for their leadership and administrative assitance during the process
of writing this thesis.
4. Drs. Muhammad Natsir, M.Hum. as her thesis adviser, for the advice,
guidance, comment, and precious time in supervising the draft of writing
during the completion of this thesis, Dr. Zainuddin, DIP. TEFL, M.Hum. as
her academic adviser, and all her beloved lecturers in English and Literature
Department who advised and guided the writer during academic year.
5. Her beloved family, her father, Surya Nasution, S.E; her mother, Dra. Dwi
Sulystiowati, thank you for the understanding and the big support in prayer,
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6. Her beloved man, M. Afdillah Damanik, thank you for your love, time,
motivation and happiness while accomplished this thesis.
7. Her best friends Dewi, Ayu and Desi, thanks for your love, motivation,
hapiness, time and friendship.
8. Her beloved friends Elnis, Kidu, and Ripka, thanks for your love, happiness,
and friendship. Her special thanks also go to all friends in Applied Linguistics
A and B 2010, and many others that she cannot be mentioned one by one.
9. Mam Eis, thanks for helping the writer to complete the administration during
the process of writing this thesis.
10.All others whose name cannot be mentioned one by one for their help and
support. Thanks for everything. May Allah bless us. Amin.
Finally, the writer admits that this thesis still far from being perfect.
Therefore, the writer would like to invite the readers to give suggestion for the
improvement of this thesis later on.
Medan, Maret 2014
The writer
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ABSTRACT
Chairunnisa, Nanda. 2014. The Violating of Main Characters in The
Hangover Movie’s Script. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.
v
J. Synopsis ... 27
CHAPTER III : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 30
A. Research Design ... 30
B. Data ... 31
1. Data ... 31
2. The Source of Data ... 31
C. The Technique of Collecting Data ... 31
D. The Technique of Analyzing Data ... 31
CHAPTER IV : DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 33
A. Data ... 33
B. Data Analysis ... 33
C. Research Findings ... 45
D. discussion ... 47
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 49
A. Conclusion ... 49
B. Suggestion ... 50
LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1. The Types of Violation of Maxim Done by the Main Characters in
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A Identification of Violation of Maxim in the Main Characters’
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interaction with other people. Language has so many variations, it is not only by
spoken or written but also by gesture of body movement and signs form.
Language also has a function to convey what we think and what we want to other
people. All the aspects of our interaction with other people include to the
language. One of the functions of language is an instrument in communication.
According to Rubin and Haridakis (1994:3), communication is a process by which
people arrive at shared meanings through the interchange of messages. To get an
effective communication, the listeners should understand the exact information or
idea that the speaker intends. However, in conversation we often do not speak
complete and clearly, so the listener(s) difficult to get the meaning of our
utterance. This phenomenon in conversation may be elaborated deeply in
Pragmatics.
Pragmatics discuss about the relation between language with the context of
the situation which usually happened in the conversation. Levinson (1983: 9) said
“Pragmatics is the study of those relations between language and context that are
grammaticalized, or encoded in the structure of a language,” (Kunjana,2005, page
48). The conversation that we do with other people also has a rule, that’s why the
cooperative principle raises in this situation to provide the rules in the
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conversation runs well, cooperative and polite. The controls of the speaker
and listener in conversation called co-operative principle. Co-operative principle
is introduced by Grice (1975). He argues, “make your conversational contribution
such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”, (Yule, 2000, page 37).
Then, Grice came up with maxims of conversation, which is the rule of language
that we used in the conversation. A maxim also one of the four sub-principles of
the cooperative principles and Grice broke the cooperative principle down into
four basic which go towards making a speaker’s contribution to the conversation
cooperative, they are Maxim of Relevance, Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Quantity
and Maxim of Manner/Clarity.
But these four maxims are not always observed by the speakers, they
sometimes flouting the maxims or violating the maxims. And Grice makes a
distinction between flouting maxim and violating maxim. Violations are ‘quiet’ in
the sense that it is not obvious at the time of the utterance that the speaker has
deliberately lied, supplied insufficient information, or been ambiguous, irrelevant
or hard to understand, but these violations do not lead to implicatures. While the
flouting is when the speaker lead the conversation to implicatures. It is obvious to
the hearer at the time of the utterance that the speaker has deliberately and quite
openly failed to observe one or more maxims (Peccei, 1999, page 27).
Character is a person who is responsible for the thoughts and actions
within a story, poem, or other literature. Characters are extremely important
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literature (Henderson, University of North Carolina). Character itself has many
types on it appearance, like the ways characters are portrayed and the ways
characters are revealed. Generally, there are three types of character, the first one
is protagonist or main character, the second one is antagonist and the last is foil
character (Russell, D. L.: 2009). Protagonist or main character is the central figure
with whom we usually sympathize or identify (Russell, D. L.: 2009). Main
character also refers to the largest role in the piece and main character may refer
to a person who typically plays such parts or an actor with a respected body of
work. There may be more than one main character in novel or movie.
The Hangover is the one of the movie that get achievement on its playing.
The Hangover itself directed by Todd Phillips, who is an American film director,
screenwriter, producer and actor.The Hangover’s story written by Scott Moore
and Jon Lucas who is the longtime partner in written and directed comedy movie.
They wrote the script of The Hangover movie which the highest grossing rated
comedy of all time.
The Hangover tells about Doug Billings, in the company of two friends:
Phil Wenneck and Stu Price; and Tracy's eccentric brother, Alan, head out to party
in Vegas before Doug’s marriage. Driving his father's Mercedez, they rent a
pricey villa at Caesar's and head for the rooftop to have a good time. Three of
them later wake up with a hangover, unable to re-collect what exactly happened.
With the villa in a wreck, they find that they have a baby in the closet; a grown
tiger in the bathroom; Stu has a missing tooth and a hooker for a bride; and Doug
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well as try to locate Doug and bring him home in one piece before the
wedding.This movie starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis
who are great actors in Hollywood (http://www.imdb.com/title/).
There have been some previous researches related on the violating
maxims. One of them is Analysis Maxims in “My Mother Dreams The Satan’s
Disciples in New York” Script by Dina Mulyanti (2013). Her study is intended to
describe the types of flouting and violating maxims of the co-operative principle
which occurs in the movie.
The study of Mulyanti inspires the writerin studying the violation of
maxim of utterance used by the main characters in “The Hangover” movie’s script
because she wants to know more about violation of maxims, especially in comedy
movie. Beside the violating maxims in comedy rarely to be analyzed by other
researcher, the writer also realize that one of the cause violation of maxim is a
humor which is exist in comedy movie. And also because this movie is hilarious
and becomes one of the movies in the Box Office.
B. Problems of the study
Based on the explanation above, the researcher has three problems that
will be discussed further through the research, they are:
1. What maxims are violated in the movie script?
2. What maxim is dominantly violated?
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C. Objectives of the study
In the relation to the problems of study, the objectives of study are:
1. To describe the types of maxims violated in the movie script
2. To describe the dominant type of maxim violation in the movie script
3. To elaborate reason for the maxim violation
D. Scopes of the study
This research focus on the analysis of the violating maxim which is done
by the main character in The Hangover movie using Grice’s theory. The data are
taken from the script of The Hangover movie.
E. Significance of the study
Findings of the study are expected to be useful in theoretically and
practically. Theoretically, it is expected to be useful for expand the knowledge for
other students who are attracted in learning Cooperative Principle and Maxims,
especially on analyzing the violating maxim.
Pratically , the findings expected to be useful for the students to avoid and
decrease the maxim violation usage when they perform a talk exchange or
conversation, for the teachers as a teaching material and for the other researchers
as inspiration to conduct a more in-depth research in order to have a better
knowledge in understanding the meaning and message contains in a talk
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
Based on the analysis of the utterances in The Hangover movie’s script in
the previous chapter, it can be concluded that :
1. There are four types of maxims which are violated by the main characters
in The Hangover movie i.e. maxim of quality, quantity, relation, and
manner in responding the question or statement given by the other
characters. It caused by some factors such as the speakers use irony words,
say the utterances which have lack evidences, give untrue information,
give more or less information than is required, make unrelated respond
with the topic and say an obscurity expression.
2. The maxim which is dominantly violated in The Hangover movie’s script
is maxim of quality (22 utterances, 53,7%) because all of the main
characters give untrue information to hide the truth about the real
information, then it followed by maxim of relation (9 utterances, 21,9%),
manner (8 utterances, 19,5%) and quantity (2 utterances, 4,9%).
3. The context of the dominant violation of maxim occur is when the main
character give the untrue information to hide the truth in their answer or
comment. In this case, Stu usually violating the maxim of quality to
Melissa. Stu and Melissa are couple, and Stu knows Melissa well. He
knows that Melissa is a jealous person, that’s why he violating the maxim
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4. Melissa believe on him without angry. Another situation is when Phil
violating the maxim of quality to Tracy. Phil and tracy are friend, Tracy is
a fiance of Doug. Phil did the violation of maxim to hide the truth by
giving untrue information in his answer and comment. He did this because
he wants to save his face. He afraid if Tracy knows and getting angry to
him about the real situation that happened to them in Vegas, that’s why he
violating the maxim of quality.
B. Suggestion
The writer suggest the readers espicially the student of English Departmen
to choose the violation of maxims as the object of research, because many
interesting aspects which can be analyzed especially in the drama comedy movie.
Some people do not know how important and crusial to learn violation of
cooperative principle to achive the successful and ideal communication because
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http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hangover
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character/arts29
